What has a Google TV and no longer has access to the Freeplay app? The answer seems to be: everyone.
Freeplay – not to be confused with the UK’s Freeview Play – is Google’s free TV app for US users, delivering FAST (Free Ad-Supported TV) channels. The latest version of the Freeplay app rolled out in September, but so on 9to5Google noticed last week, it had disappeared from some users’ TVs.
It turns out that the problem is not isolated; Google is temporarily removing the app for almost all users.
Where has the Freeplay app gone?
In a statement to 9to5Google, Google explained that it was pulling the app from all “affected devices” due to a crash issue; The Google TV Streamer does not appear to be one of the affected devices, but Google TVs are.
Google says:
While rolling out the new Google TV Freeplay guide, we discovered an issue that may increase crashes for some users. We have disabled access to the new manual on affected devices until the fix is applied. The fix will be rolled out soon and the updated guide will be available for all Google TV devices in the coming months.
By ‘all Google TV devices’ Google means US devices; there are no plans yet to make Freeplay available outside the US.
The removal of the app is disappointing, because it really is quite good. But if the crashing is severe and frequent enough to make Google remove the app altogether, it’s clearly more serious than the odd system freeze. And you still have access to your free channels, so at least you won’t lose them.